Designing for pain assessment

Alison Black will be presenting a recent project, on the design pain assessment tools, at the Information Design Conference (London, 12/13 April). The project focuses on eliciting information about pain from people with dementia, who often find it hard to explain their experience. Alison and students, Sarah Barker and Clare Leake, have worked with nurses and psychiatrists at the Royal Berkshire Hospital. The hospital’s goal is to ensure accurate prescription of pain relief medication as part of the process of avoiding the use of anti-psychotic drugs, which is one of the aims of the Department of Health’s Dementia Strategy.